


Salvaged

by bluebellbeau



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Cousins, F/M, Family Feels, Go with me on this, Kylo Ren Redemption, Non-Jedi Force use, Philosophy, Porn With Plot, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Redemption, Slow Burn, Strong Female Characters, The Force, ruminations on balance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 23:00:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6028663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebellbeau/pseuds/bluebellbeau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After failing to procure Rey for the Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren walks away from everything he's dedicated his life to.  When he crash lands on a mysterious, backward planet in the far reaches of the Outer Rim, he meets a woman who will change the trajectory of his future as well as the way he views the Force and his place in the galaxy.</p><p>Slow burn, rated M for later chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salvaged

**Author's Note:**

> A huge, huge thank you to my generous Beta, slantedsunlight. If you're not reading her fic Truth & Consequences, you totally should be.

As the crimson blade of his lightsaber clashed and spit against the cool blue of his grandfather’s, Kylo Ren felt a great many things. Anger, resentment, grief, pain, and a sliver of a bright spot he thought might be hope, though he didn’t understand why that might be. They slammed against his mind, distracting, and he knew that channeling them into the fight, honing them to a sharp point, was the only way to ensure they didn’t cripple him, leave him at a disadvantage. He’d always been a creature of feeling: even as a child, he had felt more than most and loved harder than anyone else he knew. He’d long thought those feelings a curse; he’d always wished for his mother’s grim poise, his father’s devil-may care swagger, or his uncle’s calm, rather than the maelstrom that seemed to swirl inside him. Now though, he was glad of them; his rage and pain bolstered him, made him stronger. He would defeat this girl, this child, and he would show her the ways of the Force. She was strong, he thought with pride, as her saber landed against his. She would make an excellent student. He could train her so much better than Luke had ever trained him.

 _Luke_. His concentration wavered slightly at the thought of his uncle and the girl almost managed to score a hit. He redoubled his efforts as they battled through the forest, parrying, dodging, slicing through trees and stumbling through snow, his focus so intense he all but forgot the wound in his side. Her technique was non-existent and he smiled without humor, mind slipping back to his uncle and their hours of saber instruction. He’d adored his uncle as a child: begged and pleaded to train with Luke in the hopes that it would help him control himself, harness all the emotions, but Luke hadn’t know what to do with it any more than the boy who had been Ben Solo. “Clear your mind,” Uncle Luke would say, “Let go your conscious self.” Ben had tried to explain that clearing his mind didn’t help; it seemed to serve only to increase his connection to the world around him, but Uncle Luke had insisted, so Ben had tried again and again. Opening himself up to the Force left him vulnerable in ways he’d never known he could be: not only were his own feelings magnified, but the feelings of others swarmed and overwhelmed him. In time, he had learned how to manage it, how to harness that energy, from a very different teacher.

 _Teacher_. The girl had so much promise: she would flourish under his tutelage, just as he had flourished under Snoke. “You need a teacher!” he shouted at her as he backed them to the edge of a deep ravine, desperate to be heard above the hum of the lightsabers and the cracking of the planet. “I can show you the ways of the Force!” He could feel the girl even more strongly now; anger and terror welling up inside her as she tried to think of anything to save her life. He was surprised to hear her repeat his last words back to him and close her eyes, suddenly drawing the Force to her with as much ease as other people drew breath. She opened her dark brown eyes and set her face, now on the offensive, hacking and advancing, while he struggled to catch up. Her ferocity unbalanced him, mentally and physically: he had not expected the onslaught, her raw power. This left room for her to close the distance between them, and Kylo felt real fear snake down his spine for the first time in decades. The girl swung low, searing off a chunk of his surcoat, then used her momentum to drive him back and slash through his upper arm. He stumbled as she advanced again, reaching out to grab his saber arm. Kylo instinctively reached out to grip her dominant hand, stilling her lightsabers descent toward his neck, though he could feel himself weakening quickly, the steady flow of blood from his side beginning to sap his strength. They grappled for what seemed to him like hours but was, he knew, mere moments. Her freckled face, so familiar and yet so foreign, strained with effort and his body echoed the sentiment: he was so tired. He could feel her frustration build and with a final boost from the Force, she drove his hand down into the snow, cut his saber in half, and swung her own up in a movement that nearly bisected his face. The plasma felt like it had seared him to the bone, cauterizing as it went, the scent of burning flesh hanging heavy in the air and Kylo stumbled backward, afraid that she would end this. Afraid that she would not.

The ground beneath him heaved and shuddered, and the earth split apart, a deep chasm cracking into life before him. As the earth continued to shake and the rift widened, he stared in horror and fear at the girl across from him. She desired his death. It was not the first time someone had wished him dead, but it was the first time he’d been truly afraid someone could do it. He felt her rage and bloodlust as if it was his own: they locked eyes and he knew she could leap across the space dividing them. Unwittingly, he reached out to her in the Force and felt a voice fluttering around her thoughts, so faint she might not even know it was there. It whispered to her to end him, to snuff out his life, to do what others could not. He immediately recognized the voice teasing at the back of her mind: the Supreme Leader. His stomach sank at the thought and it felt like his heart had lodged in his throat. He was the right hand of the Supreme Leader, the Master of the Knights of Ren: surely Leader Snoke would not throw him away to prove this girl’s worth. Yet the voice remained, teasing at the edge of her senses, cajoling and pleading with her to end his violent life.

Knowing full well how persuasive that voice could be, it was with some shock that Kylo watched as she powered down his grandfather’s saber and turned toward the forest, thoughts of killing him purposefully displaced by concern for her injured friend. He gazed after her in stunned silence for a few moments. The shock that his master, should wish him dead was eclipsed only by the surprise that she had been able to resist that oh-so-alluring voice. Kylo had felt sure she meant to kill him, but she had resisted: had crushed Snoke’s thoughts to powder with her own. How much power did she truly have? His musings were interrupted as the ground bucked underneath him. He tried to roll over, knew he had to get moving, but found it impossible. He grunted with annoyance and pain as he gritted his teeth and tried again, stiff and uncomfortable as his wounds began to throb and the melting snow began to seep through his clothes to his skin. He managed to roll over and push to all fours before searing pain traveled down his side and his breath left him in a rush.

On some level, he supposed he’d known the pain would come, but it was still something of a surprise when the vague, dull thrum turned to searing agony. The adrenaline from the battle had worn off, leaving his nerve endings raw and angry: he was a mass of bruises, abrasions, and burns. He probed his wounds to take stock as he almost dispassionately assessed the likelihood that he would die: his injuries were grave and the planet was collapsing around him. His chances were slim, but some long dead sense of self preservation told him to move, kept him from simply lying in wait for death. Head hanging toward the frozen ground, the fresh wound on his face pounding with every heartbeat, he tried to crawl forward, movements as slow and weak as an old man’s, but found his left arm useless. The injury to his side was seeping blood, splattering the snow beneath him red, but the pain he felt in his chest was puzzling, as it was perhaps the few square centimeters where he hadn’t taken a hit. He probed it gently with the Force, the dark swirling chaos always at his fingertips, and was unprepared for the wave of grief that rolled over him. “ _Father_!” it seemed to scream, as anguish bloomed and unfolded through his body, licking into his mind and down his limbs like tongues of flame.

Ren clenched his teeth and contorted his body, the combined mental and physical pain too much to contain. He grieved for the loss of man he’d once called father, for his absolute failure to expunge his ties to the light, and for his master’s betrayal. He wanted to lash out; slash and stab at something until the fire inside him burned out and left numbness in its wake, but his body betrayed him. It refused to do more than the bare minimum, the weakness of blood loss creeping in quickly, and the pain leaving his vision black. With a huge effort, his throat burbling with inhuman sounds he didn't recognize, he pushed himself forward through the snow. He clenched his left fist to his side attempting, vainly, to try to staunch the steady flow of blood from the wound Chewbacca's bowcaster had inflicted.

 _Chewie_. Another wave of pain swamped him before he'd dragged himself more than a few meters, the Wookiee’s grief-stricken howl echoing in his ears, his father’s touch warm and soft on his face. No matter how deep his loathing, his father had always seemed an inviolable figure, immune to death and age, just like his co-pilot and best friend. He’d loved them both as a child, loved them fiercely, and in all his years of learned hatred, had not been able to rid himself of that kernel of brightness. He’d ruined them all today: himself, his mother, his father, his uncle, and Chewbacca. Everyone he’d ever loved or been loved by; he’d ruined them all. Tears pricked his eyes, freezing on his eyelashes, forming hard, bright stars in his field of vision. Even his master, whom he had no real love for but who had been his leader these many years, was ruined today. He had nothing and no one. He _was_ nothing and no one. His body was broken and he knew his mind was not far behind. He howled into the dark; sweat dripping between his eyes despite the cold, spittle flecking his lips, red blood staining the snow beneath him, before he curled into himself, shaking, and prayed for death.

 

He hadn’t died, he thought bitterly as consciousness slowly drifted back. Ren didn't bother to open his eyes: he knew exactly where he was. The whirring of the med droid and the sound of Hux berating the medical assistant placed him squarely in the hospital wing of the _Finalizer_. “Hux,” he rasped out, unable to stand the officiousness a moment longer. “Do shut up.”

“Ren,” Hux said smugly, and Kylo opened his eyes just enough to see Hux tuck his arms behind his back and approach his bedside with something approaching glee. “I’m so pleased you’re awake. The Supreme Leader wished you to be in good health before we arrived and it will be my absolute pleasure to inform him of your recovery.”

“I’m sure you will be,” Ren wheezed as he sat up with a monumental amount of effort; he still couldn’t seem to move his left shoulder, and propped himself against the wall at the head of the bed. He glanced down to his bare chest, torso wrapped in sterile white bandages, arm bound to his side, and raised an eyebrow, painfully. “No bacta? He couldn’t have wanted me in perfect shape then.” His voice deepened and sharpened, and he knew it was threatening even in his weakened state. “Or was that your decision, General?” Out of the corner of his eye, Ren saw the med assistant slowly backing away from their tableau. He could feel the man’s fear; he didn’t envy him his current position.

Ren and Hux regarded each other with distaste for a long moment before either of them spoke again. Hux finally broke the silence, ignoring the question entirely. His lip curled into a sneer and his face contorted into an echo of itself with the effort to suppress his rage. “The Supreme Leader finally sees you for what you are: a sniveling, weak, child that has no place in the glorious rise of the First Order.”

Ren allowed his head to fall back against the wall, strands of dark hair clinging to his cheek, sweat beginning to bead his brow with the effort of staying upright. He drew on the Force, though only briefly, and pushed it outward, wrapping it around Hux’s throat just tightly enough to cause the other man to tug at his black collar and have to think about breathing. “Careful, Hux,” Ren said softly then, having made his point, released the hold.

“Leader Snoke will tear you apart,” Hux threatened, face mottling purple with rage. Ren closed his eyes, the effort of keeping them open too much.

“I do not doubt that,” he said softly, hoping the twin trickles of fear and sadness that skated down his spine didn’t show in his voice.

“Good riddance,” Hux spat as he turned on his heel and marched away. The medical assistant glanced briefly at Kylo, then scampered from the room after the general, leaving Ren alone with the nothing but the whir of machines and his own thoughts.

He knew he had made mistakes but he did not want to die, which is what would happen were he to be brought before Leader Snoke. There was very little he could imagine giving his life for, and the loss of a droid and girl, even _that_ girl, were not on the very short list. He stared at the lights on the ceiling as he contemplated his options and lost himself in the whir of life around him, the bright white of the overhead lights leaving artifacts at the edges of his vision. After long moments, he felt an answering brightness in the Force that danced around the periphery of his mind, but he shoved it away. He was so tired of fighting the light: he’d pushed it away for so long, believing that strength was only in darkness, that the pain of the dark provided a surer path to success and emotional focus than the blinding brilliance of the light.

He sighed, unwilling and unable to engage with that, and tried to readjust to a position that didn’t sting or ache, but found no relief. His face burned from the slash Rey had inflicted and he could see the ruined edges of the scar, raised and livid on his cheek. He had no doubt Snoke would take him apart, piece by tiny piece, for his infractions and he suddenly, desperately wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else. The light that danced at the edge of his thoughts sang to life: _why not_? it whispered, and Ren sat up, blinking hard and immediately wincing. “Why not indeed?” he murmured to himself, idly rolling the edges of the crisp sheets between his fingers.

What was left for him here but death preceded by a slow, deliberate dismantling of all his faculties? He reached up with his good arm to gently rub the bridge of his nose, mindful of his burns: he shouldn’t even be considering this. Snoke should have had his undying loyalty. He’d shown him the power of the dark; shown him how to channel the Force to do his bidding, rather than the other way around. He’d taken him in hand and shown him the ancient ways to make his saber, a weapon far more deadly than the ones the Jedi had used. He’d finally shown him how to channel the maelstrom of feeling around him into anger and passion, a way to drown out the cacophony of emotion. He owed Snoke everything. . .and yet his betrayal cut to the very center of his being.

He’d asked the girl to kill him: Ren had known his master wanted the girl, but hadn’t ever thought it would be at his own expense. He’d given up everything for Snoke and the First Order: any hope of a life beyond those two things had been extinguished years ago. He did his master’s bidding to the best of his ability but, he thought angrily, his best had not been good enough. He had thought himself irreplaceable; he, Master of the Knights of Ren, right hand to the Supreme Leader, should have mattered more than that.

 _Every living thing matters_ , danced across the edges of his thoughts and he frowned at the memory of his uncle’s teachings. He’d not heard the call of the light this strongly in many years and shook his head to clear it, vaguely hoping the bright spot would be shaken away, too. The light did not fade; shimmering tendrils coiled around inside him, colliding with one another to form a bright orb, small but steady at the core of his being. He sat for long hours, undisturbed, while thoughts of his master’s betrayal, of treason, of what his punishment would be if he stayed, sparked and flared, fanned into full flame by the memory of another traitor: a trooper that had broken his conditioning, stolen a ship, and walked right into the arms of the Resistance.

He had been nothing special: FN-2187 had not been part of an elite unit and had been raised from birth to know nothing but service to the First Order, and yet. . .and yet he’d managed escape their forces on Jakku, alert the resistance to the flaw in Starkiller’s design, and wield a lightsaber with a fair amount of natural skill. If FN-2187 could accomplish all that, what could he, with his superior training and knowledge accomplish? At the very least, he could get away: make an escape and then think about his next move. He found he couldn’t contemplate anything further than the immediate urge to leave: one plan at a time.

Ren swallowed hard. He hadn’t even realized he’d made up his mind to leave, but now there it was, so tantalizingly easy. He knew he could do it: it would take little subterfuge and less skill. None of the guards would question him; he had been given free reign of the ship from the moment he came aboard. Hux and Phasma were the only two on the entire ship that even came close to equaling his rank. Hux obviously knew something was amiss, but Ren doubted the Supreme Leader would have given him many details. If he could manage to avoid both of them, he would be home free.

Casting out his senses, he looked for Hux and found him mired in the minutiae of running the ship. He knew that sorting out staffing and supply could take hours, so he was safe on that front. He struck out again and looked for Phasma, puzzled to find her close: just the next med-bay over. She was awake and very unhappy about where she was but Phasma would not question him: she was too deeply engrossed in her own troubles. He breathed deeply and forced himself to stand, wobbling precariously and reaching out to steady himself against the wall. He didn’t think there was a scrap of skin on his body that wasn’t screaming: Hux had been an absolute bastard to deny him bacta treatments. The general knew little about the ways of the Force, but he did know the dark couldn’t heal; he’d wanted Ren to have physical reminders of his failure.

Ren smiled grimly, wincing at the pull on his face: now Hux would have his own failure. Losing the Master of the Knights of Ren was a sin Snoke would not be willing to forgive. Kylo worked his way across the room and dragged on a black flightsuit he found folded in a drawer. He unbandaged his damaged arm and worked it carefully into the sleeve, clenching his teeth and breathing sharply through his nose, then zipped up. He struggled with his boots as his arm seemed to go numb on and off while he was trying to fasten them, but he eventually managed. Next, he searched the drawers and cabinets for his lightsaber: there was no way he was leaving without it. He finally found it wrapped in black cloth, housed in a locker with his robes and tunics, all ruined. He mourned the loss of the heavy coverings and the anonymity of his mask but he knew, even if they had been in perfect condition he would have had to leave them behind: they weren’t exactly inconspicuous. He trailed his fingers over the broken hilt of his saber as he clipped it to his belt, the weight a comfort.

He made his way to the door and glanced at himself as he limped by the mirror: any remaining vanity he’d clung to was immediately crushed. His face was absolutely ruined by the bisecting scar. He’d never thought himself handsome, but there seemed to be a vast difference between not feeling like a Holo star and feeling like a grotesque interpretation of a man. He raised a shaking hand to lightly run his fingers over the blackened, ragged skin at the edges, and felt himself go numb. He truly had nothing left and therefor nothing left to lose.  Ren took another deep breath, side aching with the movement, stretched out his mind, and told his guard to walk away.

Steeling himself, Kylo Ren walked out of the room toward the main and away from everything he’d dedicated his life to.


End file.
